Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

There was mid-morn­ing dra­ma in up­per Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, af­ter ban­dits flee­ing a crime scene in Mar­aval were in­ter­cept­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers.

One of the sus­pects fled in­to the near­by Holy Rosary Ro­man Catholic Church, where he dis­guised him­self as a priest to evade cap­ture.

How­ev­er, that plot failed when he was even­tu­al­ly held by a po­lice of­fi­cer in­side the church.

Po­lice said three ban­dits robbed a Mar­aval fam­i­ly of their grey Nis­san Fron­tier pick-up at 9.30 am. Po­lice be­lieve the vic­tims had re­cent­ly made gro­ceries, as there were house­hold items in the ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion were alert­ed and re­spond­ed to the re­port of a rob­bery af­ter an all-points bul­letin was is­sued.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the sus­pects were in the van speed­ing in­to Port-of-Spain, when they were con­front­ed by of­fi­cers in an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle who re­ceived in­for­ma­tion about the crime which took place.

Oth­er of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion and the City Po­lice were alert­ed and as the sus­pects made their way along Park Street, the van they were in was blocked by an­oth­er po­lice ve­hi­cle, which re­sult­ed in a crash at the cor­ner of Park and Hen­ry Streets.

Po­lice said the three sus­pects then ran out of the van, leav­ing be­hind a gun, a bag and one side of a slip­per.

One of the sus­pects ran in­to the RC Church.

The Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain is­sued a state­ment about the in­ci­dent.

“While hid­ing in the sac­risty, the sus­pect put on a priest’s alb to dis­guise him­self. A mem­ber of the TTPS, fol­low­ing the sus­pect, en­tered the sac­risty short­ly af­ter and ap­pre­hend­ed him,” the re­lease said.

The scene led to scores of cu­ri­ous on­look­ers gath­er­ing to get a first­hand look at what was un­fold­ing. Of­fi­cers even­tu­al­ly cor­doned off the area and di­vert­ed traf­fic as they car­ried out their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

The Arch­dio­cese said po­lice re­cov­ered cash and oth­er stolen valu­ables from in­side the ve­hi­cle.

It al­so said it would al­so pray for the coun­try.

“The Ro­man Catholic Church of the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain con­tin­ues to pray for the crime sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We ask the in­ter­ces­sion of Our La­dy of the As­sump­tion; pray for us,” the re­lease stat­ed.